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Generic 'BioShock Infinite' Box Art Fails To Impress

With just the hint of a zeppelin in the corner, the box art for BioShock Infinite fails to capitalize on the game’s unique flavor.

So this is the box art for the upcoming third installment in the BioShock franchise, ‘BioShock Infinite.”

Irrational Games has already taken some flack for the box art which many are, rightfully, calling bland and generic, evocative more of any typical first-person shooter and its rugged hero. Everywhere, gamers are sniffing out the stench of Call of Duty imitation—even in a game’s box art.

A part of me thinks: “Who cares? It’s just box art.” But another part of me thinks this sort of thing matters—it might shine a light on the decision making process that goes into what lives and what dies within a game.

This box art is designed, one suspects, for its mass appeal and familiarity. Which is weird, because BioShock Infinite itself looks unique, looks nothing like Call of Duty. And I don’t particularly care to see my first-person character, to be honest, even if he does look a lot like an even more rugged Nathan Drake.

At first I leaned more toward the “Who cares?” side, but then I noticed these Game Informer covers.

The first one shows a mysterious man in a bowler hat surrounded by crows, sitting on an old wooden bench:

The second shows off the game’s female lead, Elizabeth:

I recall long ago when I collected comic books, occasionally an issue would come out with several different covers.

I can’t help but think that either releasing the game with box art similar to the art on these Game Informer covers, or releasing multiple covers with these and other illustrations, would have been better—would have been more timeless, better at capturing the spirit of the game and the flying Art Deco city of Columbia.

Instead we see our protagonist, a man we likely never see in the game itself, and a burning flag, and a shotgun. It’s not important, of course, but it’s a shame.

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Just to play devil’s advocate, didn’t we all expect a flattering shot of Elizabeth on the cover with some of that trademark cleavage? My point is, this may be generic, but it’s selling the gameplay, not the eyecandy.

They did apparently already give in to some of that feminist pressure, Elizabeth at least doesn’t have much resemblance with her youthful innocent self: http://static.iamgamer.de/fileadmin/screenshots/bioshock_infinite_869/all/BioShock-Infinite—Elizabeth.jpg that reminded of some of the character designs from the first Bioshock e.g. Big Daddy/Little Sisters/Splicers which all had something bizarre and off-wordly about them.

The words that come to mind when looking at the new character art is also bland and generic: http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121023103942/bioshock/images/8/81/Oct22-WALLPAPER_standard_HeroArt.jpg

Is this really an important issue though? The purpose of box-art is to catch the eye of a consumer and entice them into an impulse buy.

How much of gaming happens as an impulse buy at $60 a pop? For many, that’s a day’s pay or more, that’s beyond impulse buy levels.

Box art’s purpose is to get you to stand out from the crowd. It’s also designed by the marketing department, not the people developing the game, so it has little reflection on the game itself.

If you go through box arts, I suspect you’ll find most are designed to be eye-catching without actually representing the game at all.

IMO, it’s another sign of the growing frustration of gamers that this is an issue. It sounds to me like gamers are so frustrated with the market, so tired of getting burned by products comprimised by coorporate interference, that they’re questioning the products based on just box art.

It looks to me that with so many mediocre products being highly reviewed, and no gaming press to give them good information, Gamers are trying to find anything that will clue them in to whether or not a product is actually worth $60.

Good points. Like I said, it *isn’t* really important and I’m rather tempted to write it off with “Who cares?” But it does irk me that such obviously superior options are passed over and we get this rather bland cover instead. I just wonder how often marketing takes precedence over gameplay, art direction, etc.

-Look at ME3, was there a gameplay reason to implement Assassin Creed 2′s blade-gauntlet in a Shooter? Was there really a large market complaining about not being able to assassinate a enemy AC2 style? It’s even played up on the box art. IMO, it seems likely this was a marketing decision.

-Similiarly, ME3, Dead Space 2, and DA3 all have multiplayer forced into them despite them all being narrative driven single player games. Would this be a game design decision, or a marketing decision based on a checklist of “Feature all games must have” (Kind of a gimme since we already know EA considers it a checklist item)

-We’ve also seen reports these past couple of weeks about how multiplayer has been a checklist item forced into games that it didn’t belong in, I want to say it was in reference to Bioshock 2?

Publishers create forced dependence by draconian contracts that give studios a pittance in royalties, making studios subject to the Publisher’s whims. Publishers don’t employ game designers, they employ marketing and business people.

So with the decision making process now firmly cemented into the Publisher’s side, the process once the arena of Game Designers is now in the hands of people who think in terms of “What can I do to sell this product” rather than “This will make a great game people will want to buy”.

What I mean is, the people now making decisions are people who are trained to move product through manipulation instead of people who move product through quality.

The funny thing is, of course, that many, and an increasing number, of people who buy the game won’t ever have a box. “Box art” is becoming something of an anachronism, but will probably survive the end of boxed content because marketing plans change more slowly than technology.

True…but…even digital games need box art. And all digital games do have it (or most anyways) simply because a distinct image needs to accompany a game. This is perhaps even more true now than in the past since social media, blogs, etc. will use that image when discussing the game.

Yeah, its really not important and since childhood we’ve already countless of time about “don’t judge book by its cover”. But still, its a waste of talent, or perhaps chance. There is no harm by creating more abstract or atmospheric cover over this-so-called-generic (yeah its pretty bland standard where the hero standing cooly with gun over his shoulder, meh). Take GTA series as example. GTA games art cover is unique, distinct, making it somewhat trademark of the series (as it already parodied by many fanarts). Even Sleeping Dogs have better art cover as it has unique art style. And yeah, why they not taking the multiple art cover route? Dark Souls (lets drink! Erik) Japanese cover are different to those international release. Personally, I prefer the Japanese one as it really shows the atmosphere of the game (the cover shows Choosen Undead resting at bonfire, with everything else is darkened).

Its not a big thing really, but there is no harm about having unique flavored cover art(s) as it not only become part of the game’s identity, but maybe it can attract more people to buy it.

If you look at the production cycle of this game you will see that despite its surface promise it has many signs of a deeply troubled game, and rather than ease any of our concerns every new piece of released media only confirms the fear that this is a broken game.

This cover screams executive meddling. I don’t think anyone who was involved in creating the cover would have intended it to look like this, and it’s clear from just how shoddy and ameteur the cover looks.

Ico is another great example of something like this happening. The European and Japanese box art is beautifully minimalist, while the American one looks awful.

This sort of thing happens to many video games, in order to appeal to the masses. Japanese covers tend towards the cheery side, European ones usually more minimalist and ‘arty’ in design, and American ones are designed towards the ‘blockbuster action movie’ end of the spectrum.

It really does frustrate me when potentially good video games are stuck with covers like this, especially as someone who tends to collect lots of video games.